Blogs from Jasper, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 15

We headed off down Maligne Lake Road to cross-country ski at Moose Lake. Cross-country skiing is heaps of fun! You slide your feet along in tracks to move across flats and up hills and then you hold on for dear life when skiing down the other side! When going up steep hills, you have to walk with your skis pointing out and try to avoid slipping backwards. We fell over many times and there were many funny incidents where one of us careened off and landed in a heap! When we came to our first big hill, Quin went first. He sped off and around the corner when all of a sudden he took a spill. It appeared as if he had collected a tree! All we could see was a heap and there were loud ... read more

After dealing with a minor crisis brought on by Rufous's leaky gut syndrome (he's still running out of oil pretty quickly - the new seals mustn't have fixed the problem), we went back to Maligne Lake and, this time, hiked the steep Bald Hills trail. It was quite a hair-raising climb to the summit - there were ominous storm clouds approaching at an alarming rate and crazily strong gusts whipping up snow and blasting our faces with ice as we clawed our way to the peak. It was so incredibly windy up the top we could barely stand up. We all but ran back down the mountainside to beat the impending storm. The view was spectacular, though - we could see most of the huge Maligne Lake, Moose Lake, Mona Lake and the surrounding mountains. ... read more

Our campground is cool. It has been taken over by elk in rut who have free reign of the grounds and emit their screeching bellows all night long, trying to woo females but, in reality, just keeping everyone awake :-). I've strapped up Quin's ankle so he able to hobble short distances now, mainly lured on by the promise of food. More trips to the bakery, haha. After checking out the job and housing scene in Jasper (which seems more promising than Banff), I went for a short walk called the Valley of Five Lakes, largely because the Lonely Planet promised beavers and evidence thereof. Well, the beavers were nowhere to be seen, nor was the evidence, unless you count bark missing from some of the trees (which we tried to convince ourselves was indeed caused ... read more

After we'd once again extracted poor Rufous from his frosty casing, we set off for another hike, this time up Parker Ridge. After a slippery climb up a half-ice/ half-snow trail (which transformed into all-mud on the way down), we made it to the summit, with stunning views of the Saskatchewan Glacier and Columbia Icefield mountains. Apparently, this hike is usually very crowded, but we had it pretty much to ourselves - so this crazy, off-season trip does have its advantages. Unfortunately, on the mountain goat front, we were denied again - despite everyone saying 'if you want to see mountain goats, climb Parker Ridge'. The cantakerous little puffballs were nowhere to be seen. After the hike, we started the long drive north to Jasper, stopping at heaps of spots on the way, including Athabasca Falls ... read more

Putting many days into one entry here, so this will be a long one. Will try to break it up for easier reading. Jasper, July 15 We were really pleased with our decision to push through to Jasper on Thursday. Initially, it was largely motivated by our desire to get a campsite in the park, and we figured coming in on a Friday might make that difficult. The first pleasing aspect about this decision was the amazing view of Mount Robson we were surprised with when rounding a corner eastbound on Highway 16. I’ve had this surprise a couple of times before, but it always seems to amaze me anew each time I encounter it. And this was spectacular even though the very top of the mountain was enshrouded in clouds! From this point on it ... read more